Year of COVID-19? Will the Lunar New Year trigger another spike in China?

China rang in Lunar New Year on Sunday (22 January) with large gatherings and movement of people across the country. Millions travelled back hometowns to herald the Year of the Rabbit amid fears of a fresh COVID-19 spike. Around 53,000 people offered prayers at Beijing’s Lama Temple, while several citizens and tourists flooded the pedestrian streets in Qianmen on Sunday, reported Associated Press (AP). Also known as the Spring Festival, the Lunar New Year is China’s most important annual holiday. This is the first large-scale festive celebration since the pandemic broke out three years back. Can the Lunar New Year holiday travel – dubbed the ‘world’s largest human migration’ – trigger a coronavirus surge in China? What is the current situation in the country? Let’s take a closer look. Possibilities of spike in COVID cases

China can witness a rise in COVID infections, especially in its vulnerable countryside, during the Lunar New Year.

According to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV, over 26 million trips were made by travellers on the eve of the Lunar New Year. As people across China return to their hometowns to reunite with their families after the easing of stringent COVID curbs last December, the country’s ministry of transport has estimated that over two billion passenger trips will take place during the 40-day Lunar New Year season, reported CNN. “With a huge passenger flow of about five billion trips expected during this year’s Chinese Lunar New Year, COVID infection numbers in certain specific regions could rise, but the possibility of a large-scale epidemic rebound nationwide in the next two to three months is low,” Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist of China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), wrote on his social media account on Saturday – the eve of the Lunar New Year, as per Global Times. [caption id=“attachment_12032722” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Millions in China have travelled back to their hometowns to herald the Year of the Rabbit. AP[/caption] Acknowledging the concern about the transmission in rural areas driven by the Lunar New Year travel, President Xi Jinping said last week that he was “primarily concerned about rural areas and rural residents”. “Medical facilities are relatively weak in rural areas, thus prevention is difficult and the task is arduous,” Xi said while stressing on the need to prioritise the health and safety of the elderly, according to Al Jazeera. As per Al Jazeera, Chinese state media has reported that medical resources are being averted to hospitals and clinics in rural areas and small towns amid the expectation of the escalation in cases. On 17 January, British health analytics company Airfinity had warned that the next wave of infections is expected to affect China’s rural areas in late winter. It also predicted that the spread could be worse than that seen in the urban regions now. Updating its infections and death toll forecasts, Airfinity has said, “Our analytics indicators suggest that the virus has spread more quickly to rural areas, partly driven by people travelling for the Chinese New Year celebrations”. The company has also said China could see 36,000 fatalities a day due to the travel boom during the festival. “In our updated model, cases could peak at 4.8 million a day with 62 million infections predicted across a fortnight (between 13-27 January) before beginning to fall,”, Airfinity said on its website. Ben Cowling, chair professor of epidemiology at the University of Hong Kong’s School of Public Health, told South China Morning Post (SCMP) that Chunyun – the Lunar New Year travel rush – “will ensure that any remaining unaffected areas will be seeded with infections, prolonging this current epidemic wave”. Meanwhile, an expert says that the impact of this surge would likely be short-term. “Chunyun may indeed cause the virus to spread further, particularly to more remote and rural areas, similar to what happened at the start of the epidemic in 2020", Mark Jit, a professor of vaccine epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told SCMP.  “However, by late January it is likely that the virus will already have spread quite far, so the effect of chunyun will probably be short-term only,” Jit added. ALSO READ: Why Chinese are flocking to Hong Kong, Macao for COVID vaccines How is China faring now? China is claiming that the peak of the current COVID wave is already over. Wu said on Saturday that the “wave of epidemic has already infected about 80 per cent of the people” in China which has a population of 1.4 billion. Last Thursday, Vice Premier Sun Chunlan said COVID was at a “relatively low” level. “Recently, the overall pandemic in the country is at a relatively low level,” Sun said as per the state-run Xinhua news agency. “The number of critical patients at hospitals is decreasing steadily, though the rescue mission is still heavy,” Reuters quoted the vice premier as saying. As per China’s official data, 60,000 Covid-related deaths were reported between 8 December and 12 January. This figure excludes those who died at home due to COVID, Reuters reported. China’s CDC said last week that hospitals saw nearly 13,000 Covid-related deaths between 13-19 January, as per AFP.  [caption id=“attachment_12032762” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Fears are rife that Lunar New Year travel could trigger COVID spike in China. AP[/caption] Chinese health authorities have also claimed that the number of COVID patients admitted to hospitals had peaked with over 40 per cent fewer people requiring critical care on 17 January as compared to the peak on 5 January, Reuters reported. A study by Peking University released earlier in January estimated that nearly 900 million people had contracted COVID by 11 January, which amounts to 64 per cent of the population, SCMP reported. The reports on the study were taken down in mainland China. Moreover, World Health Organization’s executive director for health emergencies Mike Ryan has cast doubts on the official data released by China, saying the figures “under-represent the true impact of the disease”. With inputs from agencies Read all the  Latest News,  Trending News,  Cricket News,  Bollywood News, India News and  Entertainment News here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.